A man was stabbed to death when a booze-fuelled row erupted over a result in the Winter Olympics, it has emerged.

Alexander Karpov, 26, was killed in a house on Spa Street, Portarlington, Co Laois, at around 6pm on Saturday. The Latvian national was watching the Games on TV and drinking with two other men when a row broke out.

The Irish Mirror has learned the dispute centred on the results of the men’s skeleton competition in Sochi, Russia – where Russia’s Alexander Tretiakov took gold and Latvia’s Martins Dukurs silver.

It is understood one of the attackers ran to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and began threatening Mr Karpov. Moments later he was stabbed.

Emergency services were called to the scene but he was dead by the time they arrived.

Gardai arrested two men, one in his 30s and the other in his 40s, and they are being questioned.

Sources said charges are expected in the case today. Mr Karpov had been living in Ireland for the past five years and it is understood he worked part time for a local refuse company.

A security source said: “None of these men would have been known to gardai and it looks as though this was just an argument that got out of hand.

“A postmortem was carried out on the man to discover the cause of death where it is expected to show he died as a result of stab wounds.”